


Presentimental Journey

by rosa_himmelblau



Category: Wiseguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 19:51:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19875157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/rosa_himmelblau
Summary: All signs point to yes.





	Presentimental Journey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [killabeez](https://archiveofourown.org/users/killabeez/gifts).



"Sonny, what's the matter? You all right?"

Sonny stared at the little slip of paper he was holding. He'd read it three times now, and it didn't make any sense. Had to be some kind of joke.

"Sonny?" Dave prodded.

"Yeah, what?"

"Are you—"

"Fine, I'm fine." Sonny crumpled the paper, but instead of dropping it onto his plate, with his used napkin, he stuck it in his pocket.

He didn't think any more about it until the next week, when he was waiting for Mack to show up for lunch. It didn't surprise him that Mack was late; Mack was always early if it was a pleasure lunch, and late if it was business. Since he hadn't told Sonny to bring girls, that made this one business.

Sonny was reading the newspaper. He'd finished the financial page over breakfast, but he liked to read the whole paper, even what used to be called the Women's Page, just because it was good to keep up with what was going on in the world. He'd found more than one good investment that way.

But now he'd finished everything but the back side of the comics, the one that had the crossword puzzle and horoscope on it, and Mack still wasn't there, so Sonny read his horoscope.

Mack showed up a few minutes later, acting weird. All through lunch he kept asking Sonny if he was all right.

Sonny was supposed to go back to work after lunch. Instead he called Dave, said he had some business he had to take care of, and went back to his apartment.

The suit he'd worn to the China Sun the other night had been to the cleaner's, but they knew better than to throw away anything they found in Sonny's pockets. Everything, no matter how inconsequential, was returned in a zip-lock bag. Sonny found the bag in the pocket of the suit, and in the bag he found the fortune out of his cookie. He didn't read it again; he knew perfectly well what it said. It said the same thing his horoscope said. He'd torn that out of the paper, and he stuck it in the bag with the fortune and the ninety-five cents that had been in his other pocket.

He'd never tell Dave what he was doing. Sonny knew it was stupid, but—what else could he do? Once had been weird, but twice? Maybe it was some kind of trick, but how could—? Well, they'd brought him the fortune cookie, but he'd picked up the newspaper at a stand across from the restaurant, so how could that be part of it? Just to be sure, Sonny bought another paper, and compared horoscopes. They were the same.

When Mack had set him up at the Royal Diamond, Sonny had thought it would be great to be so close to the beach. But the closest he got to sand was looking at it out the window. And he never walked on the boardwalk.

Still, he knew what went on down there.

Madam Tacirrem was a short, chubby girl from Brooklyn. She was a fake—but then, all fortune tellers were fakes—but she didn't care if people knew she was a fake. She'd take your hand, stroke your palm, lean across the table so you could see her impressive cleavage, and tell you about the wonders the future had in store for you. And she gave a money-back guarantee: if you turned out not to have a future, she'd refund your twenty bucks.

Sonny had never been to a fortune-teller, of course; he'd heard about her from Chook, who sometimes blew twenty bucks just for laughs. But when you had a problem like his, who else could you go to?

"What can I do for you?" Madam Tacirrem asked when Sonny was seated across a small round table from her.

"I have a problem."

Madam Tacirrem nodded, not saying anything.

"Aren't you supposed to read my mind?" Sonny asked, when neither of them had said anything for several minutes.

"How do you know I'm not?" Madam Tacirrem asked, and before Sonny could answer, "I don't read minds, I see the future. It's a different thing."

"OK, so what's in my future?"

"Well, there are a couple of ways to do this. You can have a cup of tea and I can read the leaves when you're done, or you can give me your hand and I can read your palm. Or you can just sit there, and I'll read your suit."

Sonny had the feeling she was making fun of him. "Maybe I came to the wrong place," he said slowly, making the words sound dangerous.

"Maybe you did. But you've paid your twenty dollars."

That was true. Sonny held out his hand.

Madam Tacirrem took it and stared into his palm for several minutes. Sonny looked at her cleavage, which wasn't bad.

"Cops," she said. "I see cops in your future."

Sonny felt a kick of adrenaline. "Yeah, you read the paper, you know who I am—" He tried to take his hand back, but she was holding it.

"Shut up a minute. There's just one cop."

"Yeah, his name's Hawthorne—"

"No, he's not the one."

Sonny got the zip-lock bag out of his pocket. He took out the fortune and two horoscopes. "What do you think of this?"

Madam Tacirrem looked at all three of them. "'Beware the stranger. He is undercover.' Do you know any strangers?"

Sonny thought about that question for all of three seconds. "Of course I don't know any strangers! If you know someone—"

"I know, they're not a stranger. Have any strangers come into your life lately?"

"No, nobody—well, yeah. This klutz of a waiter, spilled soup all over me the other day. But he's not a cop."

"How do you know?"

Sonny thought about Vinnie. Was he a cop? Sonny liked him. He really didn't want him to be a cop. "He's not a cop."

"OK, he's not a cop."

"Look, don't you do anything else? What about tarot cards?"

"I never could get the hang of those. Hey, I know, we'll try some numerology. Write out your full name and I'll look it up."

Sonny wrote out his full name, and Madam Tacirrem figured out his number. Then she took a book from the bookcase behind her. "I've never done this before," she said. "In fact, I only have these books because they came with the place. Here you are, you're a seven. It says—" Madam Tacirrem dropped the book. "I think you should go home now."

Sonny picked up the book, and found his number.

"Really," Madam Tacirrem said, and she was offering him back his twenty. "I think you should go home."

**Author's Note:**

> killabeezasked me this: **If you could warn Sonny before he met Vinnie that Vinnie was a fed, would you?** which I answered. Only then this happened in my head, & it make killa laugh, so here it is.
> 
> (BTW, I think I'm coming down with something. A feverish brain is a scary brain.)


End file.
